Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20By: Dave EtchellsPanasonic introduces a five-megapixel digicam with the high quality optics of a 12x Leica lens. <<Comparison With Other Panasonic DMC-FZ Models :(Previous) | (Next): Design>> Page 3:User's ReportReview First Posted: 12/17/2004 |
User's Report
In most of my reviews, this section is called the "Executive Overview," where I present all the camera's features and functions in a concise fashion. Given that all this info is available elsewhere in the review for those who want to dig for it, I'm moving toward using this space to relate more of my personal impressions of each camera. This approach is frankly more time-consuming, but my hope is that it'll be more useful to readers than the prior format. (Due to time constraints, most of my reviews will continue in the previous format, but I felt that the Panasonic FZ20 deserved the benefit of this new treatment. Here, then, are some of the features and issues that stood out to me as I worked with the FZ20. (As noted earlier, the FZ20 is nearly identical to the FZ20, so most of these comments will mirror what I said about the FZ15.):
Fit, Feel, and Finish
The Panasonic DMC-FZ20, impressed me straight out of the box, as did its
brother the DMC-FZ15. Its solid black body and large lens just says "high
end camera," its fit and finish further contribute to that impression,
and it feels very good in the hand. The large lens makes it a little side-heavy,
but not nearly to the extent that I'd expected it to. The handgrip is relatively
small, but has a fairly tight curve to its front, so it's easy to grasp for
both large and small hands as well. Overall, a very solid "real camera"
feel.
Lens Quality and Focus Operation
The lens is really the standout on this camera, and I'm happy to report
that its optical quality very much lives up to its Leica heritage. In particular,
corner to corner sharpness is very good, and chromatic aberration is very
low, although barrel distortion is somewhat high at maximum wide angle. (Read
my comments in the Test Results section at the end
of this review for more details on this.)
The FZ20 has an unusual "one shot" autofocus option that's kind of neat. This is for times when you want to focus manually, but would like the camera to get you in the ballpark to begin with. Pressing the AF/MF switch on the side of the lens barrel all the way down forces an autofocus operation, but then leaves you in manual focus mode to tweak the focus by hand. I'm sure I've seen a feature like this on one or two other cameras in the past (some Minolta models, for instance), but the implementation on the Panasonic FZ20 is very nice.
On a less positive note, the FZ20's smoothly-operating manual focus ring on the front of the lens is one of the annoying "fly by wire" types. It isn't directly coupled to the lens' optical elements, but rather just tells the camera in which direction to adjust the focus. The result is very "loose" coupling between adjustments of the focus ring and actual changes in the focal point. Given how their lenses and focus systems work, this sort of arrangement seems to be a necessary evil in consumer digicams, but it never fails to annoy me.
Optical Image Stabilization
It's hard to overstate the value of an image-stabilization on a long-zoom
digicam like the Panasonic FZ20. A 12x zoom is all but unusable in anything
other than bright daylight without it. I don't have any way to measure the
effectiveness of anti-shake mechanisms, but the FZ20's seems to be be about
average in its performance. (Based on my purely subjective experience with
various cameras, I'd say that the FZ20's anti-shake system works about as
well as that in the Canon
S1IS, but not quite as well as the one in the Minolta
DiMAGE Z3.) These are pretty fine distinctions though - Any of the named
cameras is a radical improvement over a similar model without an image stabilization
system.
Shutter Response and Shooting Speed
As with the FZ15, you want to studiously avoid the Panasonic FZ20's 9-area
autofocus mode. In that mode, shutter response is leisurely, to put it politely,
with lag times ranging from 1.35 to 1.48 seconds. Switching to any of its
other AF modes cuts lag times to 0.53 - 0.99 second, as the lens is zoomed
from wide angle to telephoto. The long end of this range is still slow, but
isn't out of line with the performance of other long-zoom digicams that I've
tested. If you need to capture fast-moving action, you'll be happiest if you
can use manual focus (a very fast 0.08 second shutter lag) or better
yet prefocus by half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the
shot itself (a blazing 0.039 second shutter lag).
The FZ20's shot to shot speed was pure pleasure, albeit not quite as fast
as that of the FZ15. This is one camera that makes very good use of fast memory
cards: With a 32x Lexar SD card in it, I could snap an image in single-shot
mode every 0.8 second, and it can shoot continuously at 2.1 frames/second
until the card is filled. For sports use, the FZ20 is hampered a bit by its
0.99 second shutter lag at telephoto focal lengths, but if you can make do
with manual focus or can rely on its continuous shooting speed, the FZ20 could
be an excellent "action" camera.
Viewfinder - Eyeglass Friendly
With 20/180 vision, this is a topic that's near and dear to my heart.
A lot of digicams require you to get your eyeball very close to the viewfinder
in order to see the full frame, and many more offer no dioptric adjustment
to accommodate those of us with failing vision. The FZ20 does well on both
counts, with a moderately high eyepoint, and one of the widest dioptric adjustment
ranges I've yet seen in a digicam.
Control and Menu Ergonomics
Another mixed bag here, I'm afraid. On the one hand, I love the FZ20's menu
system. I actually didn't find it anything special when I first looked at
it, but once I started operating the camera, I found myself just flying
through the menu system. I don't know what makes it so fast, perhaps just
the subtle timing of how the menus respond to the buttons on the multi-controller,
but whatever the cause, I ended up liking the FZ20's menu system better than
those of most digicams I test.
On the downside, I really disliked the action of the Exposure button on the camera's external controls. You use this button to switch the multi-controller from its normal functions to controlling the shutter speed and/or aperture settings, and I found it just terribly awkward to have to press the Exposure button before being able to use the multi-controller to change the exposure variables. What would work a lot better would be a multi-controller with a central button, of the sort used by many digicams these days, letting the central button take the place of the current Exposure button.
Noise Reduction Adjustment
This was a feature I was initially very happy to see, but ended up being
a little disappointed in. The idea is to let the user trade off between higher
image noise but improved subject detail, or lower noise and reduced detail.
The control worked reasonably well, but didn't affect midtones and highlight
areas nearly as much as it did shadows. - I'd like the option to pull back
the noise processing to improve detail in things like hair and foliage at
low ISOs, rather than being mainly restricted to shadow-noise adjustments.
(This control did have a much broader effect at high ISOs, but I'd like to
see it broader at low ISOs as well.)
Bottom Line
I liked the Panasonic FZ20 quite a lot, well enough to make it a "Dave's
Pick," in fact. Its 9-area AF mode is clearly to be avoided if you're
shooting anything other than still lifes, but performance in all other AF
modes is excellent. The camera shoots well, has a good user interface, looks
great, and takes good photos. At the end of the day, this camera (and the
FZ15 before it) convinced me that Panasonic has truly entered the big league
of the digital camera market.
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